Hottest 100 cracked as Triple J outsmarted

Matt Shea

How warm? ... The closer the sample list gets to number one the more accurate it becomes.

Triple J goes into lockdown this week, as voting for the 2012 edition of the station's enormously popular music poll The Hottest 100 closes and listeners begin the long wait to find out which song takes out top spot on the now traditional Australia Day countdown. But the station's engagement with social media during this year's voting process may have inadvertently torpedoed the anticipation.

The brainchild of Brisbane resident and online marketer Nick Drewe, The Warmest 100 has used statistics gleaned from votes posted to Facebook, Twitter and other social media hubs to build what Drewe thinks is an accurate prediction of the final countdown.

I think they'll probably get most of them right.

“I was on Facebook on Sunday night two weeks ago,” Drewe explained to TheVine. “A few of my friends had posted their votes on the Hottest 100. I was just browsing through, having a look at them, and I noticed the URL structure of each of those pages had the same pattern.”

Drewe established that each vote carried with it a unique identifier, and began peppering Twitter with a clutch of different search queries. Within an hour of logging onto Facebook he had accumulated 6000 votes and applied them to a spreadsheet. “From there, it's a pretty simple process to calculate a prediction or estimate of what the Hottest 100 is going to be,” he said.

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By the end of last week, and two days before voting closed, Drewe had collected 20,000 more submissions, which when compared to the 1.3 million votes tallied in last year's poll gave the Warmest 100 an impressive sample size of 2%. Joining forces with ex-We Are Hunted staffer Tom Knox, together the two called in a bunch of favours to create Warmest100.com.au.

“I spoke to Tom, and he suggested I put up a microsite where we could make all the songs playable,” Drewe told TheVine. “Just something that people could come to and see a prediction of the Hottest 100 and learn a bit about how we pulled it together. Make it a fun project.”

Drewe was careful to describe The Warmest 100 as a prediction, rather than a leak -- he says it's not his intention to ruin Triple J listeners' Australia Day Celebrations. The site is carefully laid out with a number of safeguards protecting those who might be curious about the team's methods, but want to remain in the dark about the final countdown.

“If they choose to they can scroll down and start seeing the list from 100. They can listen to a few songs if they want and keep scrolling down towards number one. And as they keep getting to the top of the list we'll continue with the warnings that they might ruin their Australia Day,” Drewe said. “We think it'll be quite indicative of the final list.”

To investigate Drewe's methods, TheVine contacted University of Queensland Chair of Applied Statistics, Professor You-Gan Wang. “Assuming everything's independent of each other,” Professor Wang said, “and if the 26,000 is a random sample among the total potential of 1.3 million … I think with the top 100, you might get 90 right. You might get 92 or you might get 95. It's unlikely you'll get all 100 correct.”

But Professor Wang also explained that the closer the sample list gets to number one, where a greater percentage of overall votes resides, the more accurate it becomes. It's an opinion that matches Drewe's own observations: as the sample size has grown, the top songs tend to lock into place or move just one position up or down the list.

“Towards the bottom of the list, there might be only a few votes difference between each song, so they're a little more likely to change positions,” he told TheVine. “Whereas the difference between numbers two and three on the list is 52 votes. If we've got 2% of the vote, translating that into the overall number of votes that will be submitted would equate to 2600 votes between numbers two and three. The difference between the number of votes in the top 10 is a lot more significant than the difference between positions 80 and 90, for example.”

Even if the predictions are off the mark—something neither Drewe nor Professor Wang anticipate—The Warmest 100 exposes the pitfalls of using social networking to virally market the poll, particularly when, at the time of writing, betting sites such as Sportsbet.com.au, Luxbet and Sportingbet are still offering odds on the countdown.

But gleaning votes from Facebook, Twitter and the like casts a final query over Drewe's sample. “Are these people, who are posting their votes to Twitter and Facebook, representative of the average Triple J listener?” he wonders. “I think the demographics line up pretty well – it is a youth radio station and they would be attracting a fairly tech savvy and socially engaged audience.”

Professor Wang agrees: “Maybe certain types of people use Facebook, and what is the nature of that relationship to music? I don't know – unless you have historic data on whether Facebook's accurate and test if it's actually a good source of data. But common sense tells me that it's probably valid. I don't see why it wouldn't be valid. I think it's a good way of collecting samples … It's a good way to forecast or predict the top 100, especially. I think they'll probably get most of them right.”

Late on Sunday night, just two hours before the close of voting, Drewe conducted his last collection of data, pushing his sample up to a massive 35,081 votes – or roughly 2.7% of the anticipated final vote – further refining his countdown's final tally.

“It's going to be an exciting thing for us, sitting there with our own list, ticking it off as each song comes on. We'll only have one shot at this – Triple J won't do the same thing twice, letting people freely publish their votes online in such a public manner.”

43 comments

Why bother? Just sit back on Australia Day with a few beers and have the J's playing so you listen to a collection of the best tracks from the year...the countdown is second fiddle to a whole day spent with awesome tunes.

Commenter

George

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Date and time

January 21, 2013, 3:17PM

Thank Dad I don't listen to Triple J any more.

Appalling is the only word that comes to mind.

Commenter

Lazy Jesus

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Date and time

January 21, 2013, 3:21PM

Hmm...getting old their grandpa!

Commenter

TDF

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Sydney

Date and time

January 21, 2013, 4:31PM

As opposed to commercial radio...? Please!You keep your clichéd ‘Aussie bloke and ditsy-but-lovable (sic) gal’ presenters and their prank calls to royal hospital wards or rigging teenage rape victims to lie detectors. The rest of the independently minded Australian public will stick with the good tunes and non-robotic presenters.

Commenter

Orwell

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Date and time

January 21, 2013, 5:01PM

@TDF

Nup, it's just crap. Maybe you just don't know good music??

Commenter

Ray

Location

Sunshine

Date and time

January 21, 2013, 5:11PM

Sheez, settle down, Jaysciples. This bloke didn't say he preferred commercial radio and I suspect, Orwell, that you're just looking for an excuse for a terribly superior rant. And really, TDF, I'd rather be old and grammatically correct. And on the other hand, Lazy Jesus, stop being so snippy. Nobody should be condemned for their musical taste. It's their personal taste.

Commenter

Igomi Watabi

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Date and time

January 21, 2013, 5:25PM

Commercial FM radio is simply horrible.

Triple J lost the plot years ago when they allowed hip hop to be stalwarts on the playlist.

I'll stick with Pandora.

Commenter

RS Man

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Date and time

January 21, 2013, 5:42PM

God I wish JJJ would offend me. I'm getting old, I want to be horrified by the youth of today. Instead we get over-earnest kids from Adelaide pretending to be rappers and endless mournful guitar strumming.

Commenter

rl

Location

sydney

Date and time

January 21, 2013, 6:29PM

I'm with you Jesus. Triple J has gone down hill at a rate of knots the last ten or so years. What is with 'Aussie Hip Hop'? It is just pure amateur rubbish. For those wondering, commercial radio is not the alternative, Internet Radio is (Spotify, TuneIn etc). I can listen to what I want when I want without having to put up with juvenile, wannabe-comedian announcers who love the sounds of their own voices.

Commenter

Lazier Jesus

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Date and time

January 21, 2013, 6:31PM

@RS Man - couldn't agree with you more. JJJJ isn't worth listening to. It's the local ABC for me, at least I can learn something from listening to them.